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Accounting research has struggled with how ethnicity is to be understood in relation to concepts such as nation and nationality and how ethnicity may impact on accounting and auditing practices, behaviours, education and professional values. These themes are explored and developed in the papers presented in this special issue. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to explore the contrasting theoretical and methodological approaches reflected by the papers in the issue.

This is a reflective and analytical paper which explores how notions of ethnicity are conceived and operationalised in accounting research. The authors identified two distinctive analytic ordering processes evident within this AAAJ Special issue: Mary Douglas’ scheme of Grid and Group and the Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual tools of field, capital and habitus.

The “Grid and Group” Culture Theory with Bourdieu’s theoretical tools evident in the papers provide powerful tools to explore the relationship between ethnicity and accounting both conceptually and empirically, suggesting that ethnicity can be deployed to reveal and challenge institutionalised racism. This paper highlights the potential to integrate elements of the “Grid and Group” Culture Theory and Bourdieu’s theoretical tools. The issue of ethnicity and the relationship between ethnicity and accounting should be more fruitfully explored in future.

The authors acknowledge the challenges and limitations of discussing the issue of ethnicity from any particular cultural perspective and recognise the implicit dominance of White Anglo centric perspectives within accounting research.

The papers presented in the special issue illustrate that the issue of ethnicity is complex and difficult to operationalise. This paper highlights the potential to move beyond the ad hoc application of theoretical and methodological concepts to operationalise coherent concepts which challenge and extend the authors’ understanding of accounting as a social and contextual practice. But to achieve this it is necessary to more clearly integrate theory, methodology, method and critique.

Drawing on the social identity theory, this paper explores the impact of rider–driver ethnicity match on the driver’s expected ride satisfaction and willingness to perform, and rider’s trust on the driver.

The study relies on scenario-based online experiments with 291 ride-hailing drivers and 282 riders in the USA.

The findings indicate that ethnicity match between ride-hailing drivers and riders positively impact driver’s ride satisfaction and willingness to perform, and rider’s trust in the driver. The study also revealed a significant positive moderation effect of ethnic identity on the relationship of ethnicity match and those constructs.

While it may be challenging to influence an individual’s level of ethnic identity, managers can take steps to educate and train their employees regarding the impact of ethnic identity and discrimination, with a particular focus on those individuals who possess a strong sense of ethnic identity.

The findings of this research provide theoretical contributions to the existing literature on ride-hailing services and adds to the limited stream of logistics research that examines the impact of ethnicity on ride-hailing operations.

This study aims to investigate the presence of the audit partner ethnicity on audit fees within the Indonesian context.

The sample consists of 803 firm-year observations from the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of 2014–2018. The study uses fixed-effect regression analysis to examine the relationship between audit partner ethnicity and audit fees.

This study reveals that firms audited by audit partners from the main ethnic group demonstrate lower audit fees, indicating a more extensive audit business network for this particular group of auditors compared to those from minority ethnic groups. Particularly, the study finds that firms audited by audit partners from the three largest ethnicities, namely, Balinese, Javanese and West Sumatranese, are associated with lower audit fees compared to others. These findings further contribute to the existing narrative and literature that highlight the ethnic background of audit partners as a form of social capital that influences lower audit fees.

This study provides valuable practical and academic implications regarding the impact of audit partner ethnicity on audit fees. The findings highlight the importance for audit firms to strive for a balanced representation of ethnic diversity in their auditor characteristics, as it can positively influence both governance and marketing strategies. By recognizing and addressing the significance of ethnic diversity among audit partners, firms can enhance their overall effectiveness and success in the auditing profession.

This study makes a unique contribution by providing empirical data on audit pricing theory in Indonesia, specifically focusing on the role of ethnic diversity as a determinant of audit pricing. Previous research has not extensively explored the connection between auditor ethnicity and audit fees, particularly in relation to the business network as a channel mechanism. The theoretical explanations for the fee differentials have also been limited in prior studies. The current study addresses this gap by offering a theoretical basis that highlights the advantage of the dominant ethnic group in establishing an efficient audit market system. Consequently, these auditors are able to charge lower fees to clients without compromising on the quality of their services. This finding aligns with the existing literature on audit fees and underscores the importance of the main ethnic group in fostering an effective audit market, resulting in lower audit fees compared to mixed audit markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the construct of ethnicity can best be determined for empirical analysis in accounting research, particularly in the Pacific region.

This paper reviews relevant sociological and accounting literature. In addition, it presents the results of a case study where “first language” was used as a proxy for ethnicity.

The results of the literature review present six different research approaches towards determining ethnicity. Furthermore, it is found that “first language” was a justifiable determinant of ethnicity in an accounting education study.

The determination of reliable and valid proxies for ethnicity in accounting research is important for researchers, including those whose objective is to associate ethnicity with learning and teaching outcomes, accounting and financial reporting activities or behaviours.

In the context of accounting research, the value of this study is its challenge to the notions that culture and ethnicity are not only homogenous but interchangeable and to offer a reflection on how ethnicity can be determined.

This paper explores how ethnicity is implicated in an etic–emic understanding through day-to-day practices and how such practices meet external accountability demands. Addressing the broader question of how ethnicity presents in an accounting situation, it examines the mundane level responses to those accountability demands manifesting an operationalisation of the ethnicity of the people who make those responses.

The study followed ethnomethodology principles whereby one of the researchers acted both as an active member and as a researcher within a Salvation Army congregation in Manchester (UK), while the others acted as post-fieldwork reflectors.

The conceivers and guardians of an accountability system relating to the Zimbabwean-Mancunian Salvationist congregation see account giving practices as they appear (etic), not as they are thought and interiorised (emic). An etic–emic misunderstanding on both sides occurs in the situation of a practice variation in a formal accountability system. This is due to the collision of one ethnic group's emics with the emics of conceivers. Such day-to-day practices are thus shaped by ethnic orientations of the participants who operationalise the meeting of accountability demands. Hence, while ethnicity is operationalised in emic terms, accounting is seen as an etic construct. Possible variations between etic requirements and emic practices can realise this operationalisation.

The authors’ findings were based on one ethnic group's emic construction of accountability. Further research may extend this to multi-ethnic settings with multiple etic/emic combinations.

This study contributed to the debate on both epistemological and methodological issues in accountability. As it is ill-defined or neglected in the literature, the authors offer a working conceptualisation of ethnicity – an operating cultural unit being implicated in both accounting and accountability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the unique effect of ethnicity on people's internet connectedness. Internet connectedness is a multi‐dimensional relationship that individuals form with the internet.

Survey findings from a study of four ethnic groups living in seven residential areas within ten miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center indicate that ethnicity has a significant unique effect not only on the rate of people's internet access, but also on the three dimensions of the internet connectedness index: context and history; scope and intensity; and centrality, after controlling for individual socio‐economic factors.

The results indicated that African‐Americans lagged behind other ethnic groups in all three dimensions of their internet connectedness. This suggests that the ways in which the internet is incorporated into people's everyday lives are likely to differ by geo‐ethnic areas.

Implications of these results are discussed from a “communication infrastructure framework,” which provides an ecological framework to interpret the ethnic differences in the multiple dimensions of internet connectedness.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of ethnic similarity in the audit partner–client manager relationship and its impact on auditor selection and retention decisions.

The authors use name matching analysis to infer ethnicity of audit partners and client managers in the US nonprofit reporting environment. The authors examine the degree of ethnic similarity (co-ethnicity) between the two parties and model auditor selection and retention decisions as a function of co-ethnicity. The authors also model reporting attributes as a function of co-ethnicity.

The authors find that the ethnic similarity between the client manager and their external audit partner is a significant determinant of auditor-client alignment. Specifically, the authors find that clients are more likely to select and retain an audit partner who is ethnically similar to the client manager. The authors find that co-ethnicity is associated with a lowered propensity to issue a going concern opinion to a financially distressed client and an increased occurrence of underreporting of fundraising and administrative expenses.

Taken together, the evidence suggests that ethnic diversity (the opposite of co-ethnicity) in the auditor-client relationship is associated with higher audit quality. These findings are relevant to client managers, audit committees and public accounting firms as they make auditor selection and reporting decisions.

Prior studies have found that co-ethnicity influences the formation and future success of various business partnerships. The auditor-client relationship is a unique setting within the business environment where the two parties must balance their desire to maintain a close relationship with their need to maintain independence. The study is the first to examine the role of ethnicity in the auditor-client relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to establish and test the role of religiosity, ethnicity, individual basic values, and consumer innovativeness in influencing consumer acceptance of novel products. This paper specifically addresses: the driving force of religiosity and ethnicity and mediating roles of individual basic values and consumer innovativeness in influencing acceptance of novel products.

A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to 700 respondents in the urban area of Malaysia based on convenience sampling. The data collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings show that religiosity and ethnicity are the main drivers that influence the acceptance of new products. Specifically, religiosity and ethnicity have negative relationship with openness to change (stimulation, self-direction, and hedonism) and positive relationship with conservation value (traditions and conformity); conservation values have negative effects on consumer innovativeness and acceptance of new products; openness to change values show the positive relationship with innovativeness and acceptance of new products; openness to change and conservation value mediate the relationship between religiosity and consumer innovativeness; conservation value mediates the relationship between ethnicity and consumer innovativeness; and consumer innovativeness mediates the relationship between individual basic values and acceptance of novel products. The model has been able to explain 34 percent of the variance in acceptance of novel products.

Different from previous research that often focussed on demographic and observable (e.g. age, race, religion) antecedents of innovation acceptance, the current research emphasized on the influence of behavioral and psychological characteristics (e.g. religiosity, ethnicity, values and innovativeness) on the consumer acceptance of novel products.

Examines consumption as a function of two ethnicity indicators. Ethnic origin, a reflective indicator, is not subject to the volition of a person and is hardly changed by continuous contact with the mainstream group. On the other hand, media usage is partly determined by the extent and duration of one’s contacts with the mainstream group, and is therefore considered as a formative indicator. Using a sample of French‐ and English‐Canadians drawn from the Toronto area, this study provides preliminary evidence showing that ethnic origin, media usage, and other ethnicity indicators vary in terms of the extent to which they are amenable to acculturative pressure. A new typology of consumption is also introduced based on the distinction between ethnic origin as a reflective indicator and media usage as a formative indicator.

This article examines the continued salience of ethnic identity and ethnic conflicts in world politics; this is especially important given the central role that ethnicity plays in world politics, especially many developing world countries. The author argues that teachers and teacher educators must understand the pivotal role that ethnicity continues to play in world politics, especially in post-colonial African and Asian societies. Teaching about global issues, such as the current war in Iraq, population patterns in the former Soviet Union, and the genocide in Sudan, requires a deep understanding of ethnicity and its major perspectives. Moreover, by adopting a non-linear perspective, students can understand that traditional societies will reassert their ethnic identities as they confront the powerful and dynamic forces of globalization. Finally, the article will establish the links between ethnicity and multicultural and global education, especially the National Council for the Social Studies major curriculum standards.